


A bus ride

by PurpleMockingbird



Category: Amar a Muerte
Genre: Angst, F/F, Soul-Searching, spiritual guidance from lucho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 01:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17878223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMockingbird/pseuds/PurpleMockingbird
Summary: One-shot: Juliana goes through a flurry of emotions on her bus ride home from Vals house after Luchos funeral. It’s Julianas POV and really not only Valentina-centric but more ALL OF HER FUCKED UP LIFE-centric. This is only Juls. Val is only mentioned.Also, asshole Lucho becomes her spiritual guide. Bear with me!It kind of ends very soul-searching and peaceful I think.I thought I wanted to write full on Angst but it turns out I wanted Juls to have a little peace of mind.





	A bus ride

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with Secret Love Song, Pt II by Little Mix on repeat. Maybe that explains some things.

When Juliana leaves Vals house after accompanying her and Sergio there after the funeral, she doesn’t know what to feel. She doesn’t quite know what she had expected to happen. 

Maybe she had expected the warmth she has gotten used to, when it comes to being close to Valentina Caravajal.  
Waiting at the bus stop, she shakes her head at her own ridiculous hopes.  
Even though she had felt that warmth during the moments of relief when she first saw Val again after the kidnapping. 

Now all she felt was empty and tired. It hurt her more than she thought, seeing Valentina so distant - not even by choice but by trauma and grief. Seeing that hurt drown out the affection she had had for Juls. That is at least what Juliana thought she saw, when Valentina told her, she needed some time alone. 

These thoughts occupy her so much, that she nearly misses her first bus stop – and the one in the second bus as well. 

In bus number three she realizes it has been like a loop – a horrible, gruesome loop.  
Thinking she lost Valentina after Vals family found out.  
Thinking she lost Valentina entirely, when she was held hostage by the cartel.  
Thinking she lost Valentina because of the hatefulness of her own mother.  
Thinking she lost Valentina to Lucho.  
Thinking she lost Valentina because she betrayed her with Sergio.  
Thinking she lost Valentina because she would die before she could see her again.  
A single tear rolls down her cheek, as she closes her eyes and presses her head to the window of the bus that will take her home – to a house, she has no business being in. 

She gets it now. That horrible loop is what Valentina experienced as well, and she needed it to stop. Juliana smiles a sad smile as she thinks about how Valentina was always a little bit better in touch with her emotions, always a little bit more reflected, a small step ahead of her at all times.

Juliana really does miss her stop this time. She is too occupied remembering Val telling her about never having been in love with anyone, and then immediately flashes to the moment when Val told her she loved her. A lot. She can’t keep the tears from rolling now and covers her face with the sleeve of her jacket. The bus is almost empty at this time of evening and no one notices as Juliana cries for the lost opportunities and the lovely memories that are now tinted in grey and sadness.

Several minutes have passed when she looks out the window and, like a sign, she sees an old advertisement for an airline. Something about freedom is written on it – she is too slow to read it completely.

She remembers Val asking her whether she’s staying or leaving and for a second she scratches the idea of leaving, because she can’t leave Valentina on her own now – not after asking her to still be her friend. And then she realizes – that’s what she had asked Val, not the other way around. 

And just like that it comes crashing down on her – maybe Val asked if she was leaving because she secretly hoped she would – so that the loop would finally end. So she could heal from the grief, and trauma and from all the disappointed hopes of a future with the first person she ever was in love with.  
Her nerves are gripped by an ice cold hand as she realizes she knows nothing anymore. What’s the right thing to do here?!

Juliana forces herself out of the frozen position she has been in, out of this frozen and distressing circle of thoughts and gets up as fast as she can and exits the stopped bus at its last stop.

Last stops – she had some experiences with those today. She laughs a sad little laugh at herself, as she stands lost at an empty bus stop and thinks for a second of a young man she had not liked at all while he was alive but found herself forced to feel regret and sadness and empathy toward. His last stop on this earth had come today. It could have just as easily been hers.

She wipes her face clear of her tears and decides, living is what she owes to Lucho now. Yes, this idiot! Lucho! That abusive and horrible boyfriend and ex-boyfriend of Valentina! How it ever could come to her feeling like she owes him something – she does not know. But she does now. 

She starts moving in the direction of her house, which is hours to walk to now, and a random laugh leaves her lips. Had she died that day – the same day as Lucho did – maybe they would’ve come back anyways. How fucked up would that have been? 

She can’t help but laugh a little more, even as more tears stream down her face, when she thinks of how Eva would probably approve of her relationship with Valentina then and of how proud and open she could be with Val as her girlfriend then and of how Lucho would be so fucked if he had to deal with Lupe as his mom, who would set him on the straight and narrow path and send him out to work for a living. 

And just like that she realizes, she has figured out why this soul jumping transmigration was actually happening to her father. There was so much he had left to learn – he just couldn’t leave before doing so.

Lucho and herself should’ve learned some stuff as well, she thinks and with that decides she wants to learn those things – even if the universe isn’t forcing her to, like her father.  
She looks up at the stars, that are dimmed by the city around her and apologizes, once – for the first and last time ever – to Lucho, because he cannot learn what he should have in his life anymore.

Is this what making peace with someone feels like? She wonders, if she could ever achieve this with everything that is going wrong in her life. Is the answer really to just put yourself into the shoes of the people that hurt you? To see what you should learn from them and what they should learn from the world?

All this philosophical thinking has made her calm down. In fact, she is eerily calm now and once – for the first and last time ever – she thanks Lucho, for saving her and for weirdly guiding her out of a very distraught emotional spill.

Juliana thinks that Valentina would appreciate this very weird story. She thinks of how they had talked about souls and transmigration, about death and love, about music and breakfast and she realizes that whatever happens, she will always have that, regardless of what she had thought before.


End file.
